Modern payola could be a massive problem

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The economic principle I’m exploring is “because of scarcity, people choose.”

My research question to help me study the economic principle is “How important is getting heard compared to making better musicianship?” 

 The article published in The Balance Careers titled “Payola: Influencing the Charts” demonstrates this economic principle by showing how the desire to get music out there can trump personal interests in the music industry.

 First, what is payola? Heather McDonald describes this as when “record label or other interested party [pays] a radio station to play a certain artist.” This effectively roots out what artists succeed and who fails, as exposure is everything. Listening to a song makes you decide whether you would want to buy it or not and continued listens might make you move more toward buying it. Paying radio stations basically means more profit, regardless of the artist.

 Then, how does this relate to music streaming services? This brings up the question on how prevalent this is in music streaming. For example, do you get recommended songs for popular artists even though you haven’t even listened to in a genre that you don’t even like? I’m not saying that Spotify is exactly being paid to recommend you artists but that could happen in the near future. A rich music label could slide Spotify a huge payment so their algorithm would prefer them over their competitors. It would be borderline propaganda if Cardi B was on every other song in your recommended regardless of how much you love her.

In my next blog post I will research the question: How do music award ceremonies and other exposure events affect sales of artists?